Monday, March 3, 2008

The 443rd Cubs wanted to link with a pack from another country. We were fortunate enough to find the 9thBenoni Pack outside Johannesburg South Africa.

Since we wanted to learn about how they were like and unlike us, we decided to have a question exchange. Each pack was asked to put together a list of 5 to 10 questions that they would want to ask the other Pack.

We found out that Cubs are Cubs and despite some differences, including 13,000 km of distance, we were surprisingly alike. Both packs wanted to know about things:

each others uniform and scarves

meeting places and meeting structure

favorite activities and games

camps attended in a year and where

badges and advancement

climate

ages of scouting sections

The 9th wanted to know if we had girls in the pack (not this year) and if we played American style football. Our fiercely Canadian Cubs had other sports on their mind.

Scouts Canada seems to differ a bit from South Africa. There seems to be a more granular advancement Cheetah, Leopard, Lion and Leaping Wolf. There is also a badge called the Arrow of Light which Canada doesn't have but South Africa and the United States have. It indicates the Cub is prepared to advance to Scouts.

Some references on Canadian Cubbing's 70+ stars, badges, and awards can be found here, here, and here.

Akela Joy at the 9th maintains a blog with lots of activities and pictures, here. There are some good activities on it and I encourage you to read it. They recently had a raptor show and South African Eagles are quite impressive looking!